1inch Co-Founder Drops Bombshell: DeFi’s Future or Just Hype? 🤔

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In a world where $500 billion whispers through the veins of blockchain, 1inch, the maestro of decentralized exchange aggregators, sat down with crypto.news to unravel the tapestry of interoperability. 🧵 From real-world assets to the ethereal realms of cryptocurrency, 1inch is weaving a non-custodial future. 🌐

Decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregators are the new rockstars of DeFi, strumming the chords of liquidity from multiple DEXs to orchestrate a symphony of optimized trading conditions. 🎸 According to Defidotapp, the total trading value of DEX aggregators hit a crescendo of $2.03 billion by February 2025. 🚀 Amidst this, 1inch, the virtuoso of DEX aggregators, shared its vision at Paris Blockchain Week, navigating the turbulent waters of the current crypto cycle. 🌊

Founded in May 2019 by Sergej Kunz and Anton Bukov, two Russian developers who met at a hackathon, 1inch has become a DeFi powerhouse. 🏭 The platform optimizes trades across 400+ liquidity sources on 12 blockchains, processing over $500 billion in volume, with zero withdrawal fees and no gas fees offered by its native Chi token. 💰

Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch, revealed to crypto.news how the firm is leaping from the decentralized finance sector into the crypto space, offering users a seamless cross-chain experience that rivals centralized exchanges. 🏃‍♂️ With a focus on DeFi growth, backing entities like Bitcoin and Solana, and leveraging AI, 1inch aims to aggregate media into a seamless technological umbrella. ☂️

“It’s getting better and better. I think we will see in a couple of years a seamless experience like in centralized exchanges with the benefits of non-custody and atomic execution,” Kunz mused to crypto.news at a Parisian café on April 16. ☕

In the Wild West of DeFi, atomic execution ensures that a transaction is executed in its entirety or not at all, preventing losses from failed or partial trades. 🤠 Kunz explained that 1inch’s new features allow routes to trade through multiple DEXs to optimize pricing, with atomic execution ensuring the entire swap completes as a single, indivisible transaction on the blockchain. 🔗

As a DEX aggregator, 1inch sources liquidity from multiple DEXs to find the most favorable rates for a single trade. 🎯 The firm uses a smart contract-based system that enables users to swap between tokens and set their desired price. 💡

“We came to the idea that we have this intent-based protocol to just say what they want to get and how it’s going to be executed is the bread of market makers and market traders,” Kunz said. 🍞

“We extended this functionality with cross-chain swaps. And now, we are a cross-chain marketplace for all users,” he continued. 🌉

The total trading value of DEX aggregators was over $2.03 billion as of February 2025, reflecting their growing role in DeFi. 📈 The market capitalization of DEX aggregator coins was $2.5 billion as of January this year. Top coins include Jupiter, 1inch, and Cetus Protocol, but others are nipping at the heels of these competitors. 🐾

Kunz has launched Fusion+, an advanced upgrade to 1inch’s Swap Engine, aiming to create more efficient cross-chain swaps to get better rates through intent-based architecture and bridge less technology. 🌐 Fusion+ has facilitated over $200 million in cross-chain trading volume, with integrations like ZKsync boosting overall performance and security. 🛡️

Today, 1inch is prioritizing cross-chain integration in Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL), aiming to allow users more interoperability across popular cryptocurrency options. 🚀 However, integrating these coins, which operate on their own non-EVM blockchain, presents several technical challenges due to differences in blockchain architecture. 🧩

These hurdles limit Bitcoin’s utility in Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem, where over $100 billion in TVL (as of April 2025) is concentrated in EVM chains. 🏦 Bitcoin holders face friction when attempting to use BTC in yield farming, lending, or trading on platforms like Aave, Compound, or 1inch. 🚧

Still, 1inch has its sights set on conquering the traditional finance sector by partnering with banks and other financial institutions to deploy DeFi technology and bring more players on-chain. 🏦 The idea, according to Kunz, is to open up the floodgates for institutional adoption of cryptocurrency, but in a way that is DeFi native. 🌊

“Self custody is our value proposition as well as atomic execution. We plan to expand to TradFi. From our point of view, TradFi needs to adapt for us. It is not us that has to be able to adapt to TradFi, in terms of technology because our technology is unique,” said Kunz. 🛠️

Kunz also views security as a major hurdle. 🚨 He explained how the 1inch team is aiming to solve security issues by integrating anti-money laundering procedures and know-your-customer procedures, which may open the doors to greater institutional interest. 🚪

“We have a service that aggregates other security services who monitor all the wallets who funds, launder funds. And who move funds from central wallets, and we decline the interaction for APIs at 1inch lab for such wallets,” Kunz said of the current security architecture 1inch maintains. 🔒

With the rise of real-world asset tokenization, Sergej Kunz sees the sector as a natural second step within 1inch’s roadmap for expansion. 🗺️ In the next five to ten years, he predicts that people will be able to trade traditional stocks and other conventional securities on-chain. 📈 Soon, Kunz believes, traders will be able to retain non-custody on these assets in a way that transcends regional boundaries and builds on atomic execution. 🌍

According to a recently published joint report by Ripple and BCG, the market size for asset tokenization has the potential to hit $18.9 trillion in 2033. 💰 At the moment, the market size for tokenized assets stands at $600 billion, with major expansion predicted by experts who see on-chain, trade-able stocks as the natural evolution of fin-tech. 🚀

In light of this potential for major growth, Kunz worries about a lack of secondary markets for tokenization of real-world assets. 🤔 Despite DeFi being a burgeoning sector of the crypto ecosystem, not many advanced secondary markets exist for niche tradable assets. 🏪

“There’s no single place where you can wait for the best execution, and that’s where 1inch comes in. That’s what we’re building. The potential is huge.” 🌟

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2025-04-16 15:12